Film crews take viewers behind the scenes of the day-to-day experience of Scientology around the globe, from a typical day in a Church to its worldwide outreach.
Much happens behind the scenes of the fastest-growing religion of the 20th and 21st centuries. Global humanitarian campaigns and Church openings draw public attention, but there is more to tell. Inside Scientology gives viewers access to everything Scientology does. In these episodes, network cameras go where no cameras have gone before. They travel into the archives of L. Ron Hubbard’s original works and witness the meticulous technical process that permanently preserves them. Metal recording plates and archival books are produced and sealed in titanium time capsules and stored in underground vaults built to resist any natural or man-made disaster. Members of the Church’s religious order secure these documents for eternity, with reverence and in recognition of their historic importance.
Cameras explore the stunning atrium at Flag, the Church’s 21st-century spiritual headquarters in Clearwater, Florida—the largest Church of Scientology structure on the planet. They explore the Los Angeles Church of Scientology, located in the middle of Hollywood and seen daily by thousands of people from around the world.
Cameras also take viewers inside the massive Church of Scientology International Dissemination and Distribution Center, a 185,000-square-foot state-of-the-art facility for the production and distribution of Church-supported campaigns. At Bridge Publications, the Los Angeles-based publisher of all nonfiction works of L. Ron Hubbard, viewers can witness the mass production—in more than 50 languages—as materials are digitally prepared, packaged and shipped. Viewers will go aboard the famous Motor Vessel Freewinds, the Scientology religious retreat and humanitarian ship. Cameras also go inside the majestic Saint Hill, L. Ron Hubbard’s historic manor house in East Grinstead, England, where he wrote many of his most famous works. Finally, they take viewers inside Scientology Media Productions itself, the heart of the Scientology Network.
INSIDE SCIENTOLOGY
EPISODE: INSIDE A CHURCH
Along the sunbaked sidewalks in the heart of Hollywood, at the place where L. Ron Hubbard Way intersects with the iconic Sunset Boulevard, stands the Church of Scientology Los Angeles.
It is the home Church to thousands of Scientologists who live and work in the Los Angeles area and serves as a center for the Church’s religious order. This Church was restored and rebuilt from the former Cedars of Lebanon Hospital.
Inside Scientology, the new series telling the story of Scientology, and opening the doors of the religion to the general public in new ways, will include an episode that takes viewers into Churches and related facilities across the globe—including the Church of Scientology Los Angeles.
This episode goes right inside—showing viewers the spaces of the Church and the spiritual technology that defines it. Viewers will see how the E-Meter works and hear about Scientology spiritual counseling called “auditing.”
This series provides unrestricted and unfiltered access behind the scenes and it is what viewers will find when they look inside a Church of Scientology.
INSIDE SCIENTOLOGY
EPISODE: DISSEMINATION AND DISTRIBUTION CENTER
The Church of Scientology exists in 167 countries around the world. In addition to dozens of new Churches added in the last decade, the Church’s renowned humanitarian programs have reached more than 500 million people, in more than 50 languages.
To do so, the Church needed a printing and manufacturing facility capable of not only producing millions of booklets and religious materials in short periods of time, but of constructing furnishings, signage and systems for the expanding network of Churches and humanitarian projects. How that was accomplished is detailed in a one-hour episode of Inside Scientology.
The Church of Scientology International Dissemination and Distribution Center is one of the largest production facilities of its kind. Located in Los Angeles, it is 185,000 square feet of mechanical and digital precision, custom-designed from the ground up by the Church.
Camera teams explored the technology behind manufacturing, and the expertise needed to print Freedom and a host of other Church magazines in more than 15 languages. Every copy of The Truth About Drugs and The Way to Happiness handed out from South Central Los Angeles to South America and South Africa, comes from this one facility.
The episode shows how this pristine facility—with a 165-foot-long printing press—runs 24 hours a day, every day of the year, printing, building and shipping materials across the globe. This spiritual power plant produces banners of any size, iconic yellow Volunteer Minister T-shirts, books, pamphlets, uniforms and literally everything needed by any Church around the world—also keeping pace with humanitarian materials requested by educators, drug prevention and human rights specialists, police and community partners and organizations representing all faiths.
Viewers will see the power behind this operation—the advanced organizational methods designed by L. Ron Hubbard to maximize efficiency and morale of the dedicated staff.
INSIDE SCIENTOLOGY
EPISODE: ARCHIVAL PROJECT
It would be hard to venture further “inside” Scientology and not walk through the religion’s unique and carefully protected “archives,” in underground vaults where the foundational writings and scriptural texts, crafted by L. Ron Hubbard, are being preserved—for eternity.
The process—known as the Church of Scientology Archival Project—has captured that spiritual technology through the creative applications of existing science to the “ancient riddle” of how to combat the effects of time.
Cameras go inside the actual archives to document in detail the three principal steps taken to meet the mission of “safeguarding the Scientology scriptures for all future generations.” The preservation, archiving and permanent storage of those works proved to be a challenge that not only leveraged existing technology, but required the creation of new methods and techniques.
Within the archives are time capsules, and atmospherically controlled vaults that will, for as long as possible, preserve the more fragile handwritten works, and early-technology tapes and films. Preservation requires the capture of images of all those originals to be preserved with digital technology.
The challenge was magnified by the sheer volume of the some 75 million words, both written and recorded, that define Scientology.
Throughout the project, archivists consulted with experts in preservation and in the process, the Church’s religious order discovered the need to create their own laboratories to permanently house the voice and images of Founder L. Ron Hubbard.
As viewers enter these archives, they will find answers to how a religion, built on science and technology, has brought advances to the art, skill and importance of preservation.
INSIDE SCIENTOLOGY
EPISODE: BRIDGE PUBLICATIONS
This is a 21st-Century publishing house with revolutionary digital printing equipment housed in a massive 276,000-square-foot facility with a 2.6 million cubic foot warehouse—the size of a large city block—producing 385,000 books a week.
All from just one author.
Bridge Publications in Los Angeles was designed for one purpose: to offer L. Ron Hubbard’s writings and lectures on Dianetics and Scientology to anyone, anywhere, in their native language. His entire collection of books and lectures, available in more than 50 languages, comes from this one remarkable facility.
The Inside Scientology series shows viewers how Bridge evolved from that one goal: to be able to deliver anything from L. Ron Hubbard, anywhere, in virtually any language. That involved not just printing, but manufacturing and distribution as well. Since there was no facility offering those services to the exacting standards required, at a price that would make it feasible, Church leadership decided to build their own.
And that turned into Bridge—the largest all-digital publisher in the world, with administrative offices, manufacturing, printing and distribution all under one roof, and all computerized, running 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
Bridge is more than a printing plant; it has become a publishing and distribution marvel. Church staff worked with manufacturers to design equipment that didn’t yet exist—with completely digital printers that increased production, reduced waste, cut time and most importantly reduced cost.
The result? A facility that can produce 100,000 copies of Dianetics in English, or 100 copies in Swahili, for the same cost per unit—at the push of a button. From 20,000 copies of Dianetics delivered to the Harlem, New York Church, to 500 copies of The Problems of Work in Gaelic headed to Ireland, the solutions are in the system. With 3,500 miles of paper on hand, Bridge handles it all. And Inside Scientology takes the viewer there.
